Two weeks after a massive tremor killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, authorities have now confirmed six people killed in the latest earthquake to strike the border region of Turkey and Syria late on Monday.
The quake of magnitude 6.4 that was followed by 90 aftershocks, was centred near the Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon , Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) said, as rescue work from the initial tremors on Feb. 6 are been rounded off.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has come under criticism for what Turks labelled a slow emergency response to the first quake and over construction policies that meant thousands of apartment buildings crumbled on victims when disaster struck.
Erdogan, who has been in power for two decades is facing presidential and parliamentary elections in May, although the disaster could prompt a delay. Even before the tremors, opinion polls showed he was under pressure from a cost of living crisis, which could worsen as the disaster has disrupted agricultural production.
Experts have also said his promised swift reconstruction could be a recipe for another disaster if safety steps are sacrificed in the race to rebuild.
Read also: Austrian children sue government, demands stronger climate action
Meanwhile, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 294 people had been injured in the latest quake, adding that patients were evacuated from some health facilities that had remained in operation after the first quakes, as buildings cracked while AFAD said the death toll in Turkey from the Feb. 6 disaster had reached 41,156 and was expected to climb, while 385,000 apartments were known to have been destroyed or damaged.
Most deaths in war-torn Syria have been in the northwest that is controlled by insurgents at war with President Bashar al-Assad, where the United Nations said 4,525 people were killed following the Feb. 6 earthquake with 1,414 of those in areas under government control.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
